Darden v. Wainwright, Secretary, Florida Department of Corrections (477 U.S. 168)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided June 23, 1986 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 477 U.S. 168 · 106 S. Ct. 2464
- Decided
- June 23, 1986
- Term
- October Term 1985
- Vote
- 5–4
- Majority author
- Justice Powell
- Issue area
- Criminal Procedure
- Disposition
- Affirmed
- Outcome
- Petitioning party lost
- Ideological direction
- Conservative
Opinion excerpt
Justice Powell delivered the opinion of the Court. This case presents three questions concerning the validity of petitioner’s criminal conviction and death sentence: (i) whether the exclusion for cause of a member of the venire violated the principles announced in Wainwright v. Witt, 469 U. S. 412 (1985); (ii) whether the prosecution’s closing argument during the guilt phase of a bifurcated trial rendered the trial fundamentally unfair and deprived the sentencing determination of the reliability required by the Eighth Amendment; and (iii) whether petitioner was denied effective assistance of counsel at the sentencing phase of his trial. h — I Petitioner was tried and found guilty of murder, robbery, and assault with intent to kill in the Circuit Court for Citrus County, Florida, in January 1974. Pursuant to Florida’s capital sentencing statute, the same jury that convicted petitioner heard further testimony and argument in order to make a nonbinding recommendation as to whether a death sentence should be imposed. The jury recommended a death sentence, and the trial judge followed that recommendation. On direct appeal, the Florida Supreme Court affirmed the conviction and the sentence. Petitioner made several of the same arguments in that appeal that he makes here. With respect to the prosecutorial misconduct claim, the court disapproved of the closing argument, but reasoned…
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